


Come Away, O Human Child

by Narya_Flame



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, Magic, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:27:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25508968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narya_Flame/pseuds/Narya_Flame
Summary: "The fear of the beautiful fay that ran through the elder ages almost eludes our grasp."- J. R. R. Tolkien,On Fairy Stories
Comments: 14
Kudos: 14
Collections: Every Woman 2020





	Come Away, O Human Child

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elleth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/gifts).



In truth, they had always been different. As a child Rimoete sang to the birds, and guessed the thoughts of her maids, and felt the ground whisper under her feet. Her brother Mael once had to be pulled from the sea, half-drowned; as he lay gasping on the sand and retching up water, he told his frightened nurse that the waves had called his name.

"I hear it too," Rimoete mumured as she sat beside his bed that evening. "But you cannot listen to it."

"Why not?"

"Because you are our father's heir. When you are older, this hall and the land around it will belong to you. Our people will look to you as their lord."

He reached for her hand. "And to you."

"No."

"You are my twin!"

Rimoete only smiled, and told him to sleep, and as he closed his eyes she sang a song from her dreams, of twilight in the woods and warm, soft hands in her hair.

In the morning their nurse left them. "They're halfway to grown; they have no need of me," she told Hocar, the steward - but Rimoete understood, feeling it as surely as a crack in the face of a rock. The old woman had fed and raised and nurtured the twins, and yet as the years went on, she had begun to be afraid of them. She could bear no more days like the one she had endured on the shores of the sea, sobbing at Mael to return.

Hocar watched the twins closely after that. He took charge of their learning and welfare, and loved them as dearly as though they were his own. When Rimoete repeated the tales of the birds, or when Mael sighed that the sea was singing, Hocar listened and did not reproach - yet he made them promise to take care, and would not let them walk beyond the bounds of the hall alone. 

"The world is not kind to those with your gifts," he warned them one evening near Christmastide.

Rimoete lifted her head. She watched the firelight cast shadows in the curves of his face, and lightly she probed at the fears tucked into his heart.

"What did you see?" Mael whispered to her as they lay under the sheets that night.

She did not answer at once.

"Rimoete?"

"I think," she replied slowly, "I think it had something to do with Papa."

When spring came that year, she bled for the first time. She was moved from her brother's room, and the servants began to whisper of suitors, and marriage, and noble houses with handsome sons.

"I do not think I can do it," she told her brother as they walked the wind-lashed shore. 

Mael paused to examine an empty crab-shell, picked clean by the gulls. On the rocks nearby huddled two of Rimoete's attendants; above, on the cliffs, Hocar and his men kept watch. "You do not have to marry. I could refuse my permission."

"The choice is not yours; we are not of age." She knelt beside him at the edge of the tide-pool, and with a soft hummed tune she coaxed a goby from behind a rock. "It is hard enough to hide what I am from my maids. To hide it from a husband would be impossible."

He gave an odd, sad smile. "And what is it that we are, sister-mine?"

"I do not know." She raised her eyes to the cliffs. "But it is past time that we found out."

After supper they went to Hocar's rooms. He sent his servants away, and settled them both by the fire with chamomile and mead, and touched each of them lightly on the cheek.

"I know what you would ask of me." A soft half-sigh, and sorrow behind his eyes. "Perhaps I should have told you long ago."

And so at last they learned the truth - their father's bargain with the witch; the draught he had given his wife to quicken her womb; the hunting trip, the pursuit of the white hind, and his defiant refusal of the Corrigan's demand.

"He swore all men on that hunt to secrecy." Grief echoed in Hocar's voice like wind through a cave. "I do not think he knew what you would become."

"What of our mother?" Mael asked.

"She died of a broken heart."

Rimoete stared into her cup. "And the witch? Where is she?"

Hocar shook his head. "I cannot say. For a time after you were born, we searched for her, but there was no trace."

As proof of his tale - though he had never given either of them cause to doubt his word - he unlocked a small chest stowed under his bed, and produced the phial that had held the Corrigan's draught. When Rimoete cradled it in her hands and asked if she might keep it, he hesitated, but did not refuse.

"What will you do now?" her brother asked as they parted for the night.

"I do not know." She did. It was the first lie she had ever told him.

In the pallid half-light before dawn, Rimoete stole down to the gates. A bundle on her back held bread and wine and cheese, and the phial was tucked into her pocket. She said no farewells and took no leave, though she kissed her brother's brow as he slept, and stroked his tousled hair. The breeze was cool and quiet, and as the sun rose she followed her feet, heeding the call of the ancient woodland where Hocar had long ago forbidden them to walk.

A white hind stood at the edge of the trees. _You have come, then._ One ear flicked. _She has waited for you, child of the ancient world. Will you go to her at last?_

Rimoete closed her eyes and felt the swell of the forest's magic, the call of its flora and fauna, the stories that hung in its air. As though through a summer sea-fog, she heard the whisper of a song, seductive, sweet, and maddeningly familiar. It had come to her on the tongues of birds and in the curl of the breaking waves, and she had heard it in sleep as a child, as she drifted down into dreams.

She smiled and stepped into the woods. "I will."

**Author's Note:**

> Tolkien used 'Aotrou' ('lord') and 'Itroun' ('lady') as proper names in his poem; I have similarly named Aotrou's heir 'Mael', which translates from Old Breton as 'lord' or 'prince'.
> 
> 'Rimoete' is slightly more complicated. It is attested in primary sources from the 7th-10th century and [is thought to mean "king + majestic"](https://heraldry.sca.org/names/EarlyMedievalBreton.html#other), but from context is apparently a feminine name.
> 
> 'Hocar' means 'good-kinsman', which seemed a fitting name for Aotrou's trusted friend.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [With a Faery, Hand in Hand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28512834) by [Narya_Flame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narya_Flame/pseuds/Narya_Flame)




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